If you are charged with the responsibility of recruiting the workforce for your healthcare facility, then you would agree that a lot of challenges come with the job. First, you have to deal with the fact that there are not enough personnel to fill the demand.
The demand for highly qualified medical personnel has made the space very competitive with everyone struggling to get the best hands on their team. Visit https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ to learn more about the demand and supply of workers in this industry.
After dealing with this shortage, you then have to handle all the other challenges that come with staffing.
If you are looking to ramp up your staffing efforts, then updating your recruitment strategies is a wise move. Below are some important tips that you can use to make sure you are not just above the challenges, but that you are also at the top of your game.
Important Recruiting Tips That Can Help You Fill Essential Healthcare Vacancies
1. Put Up Your Ads on Healthcare Job Platforms
Putting up your ads on mainstream job platforms is insightful and a great way to get your word out there, but you must be more specific and post the ads on healthcare job platforms. This way, you would get the specific audience you need and get appropriate candidates a lot faster.
2. Offer Great Benefits
One thing that should be at the back of your mind is that you are in an extremely competitive market. So, you need to do everything within your means to win and by winning we mean to get the best highly qualified medical workers for your facility.
One way to achieve this is by offering benefits that are better than what your competitors are offering. A great benefits package will not just bring the best personnel to your doorstep, but it will also discourage them from leaving.
Some great benefits that your package needs to include are flexible and fair working hours and access to health and wellness programs.
3. Properly Assess Soft Skills of Your Candidates
For health professionals to be ahead of their colleagues, their approach needs to be people centered. They need to be very interested in helping their patients and others. This is part of the reasons why soft skills like listening are especially important. Click here to find out why these skills are necessary for healthcare professionals. They also need to work well when under pressure.
Therefore, you need to be sure that your candidates possess these necessary skills and traits. You can do this by making sure you ask them the right questions during the interview.
4. Build the Facility Brand
As we have said and you most likely know, these jobs are highly demanded and the supply for the demand is not enough. So, everything you do should be aimed toward standing out from the crowd.
Building the brand of your facility will help you achieve this in ways that you did not even think possible. You need to effectively show prospective candidates what your facility’s values and vision are.
For instance, you can build the facility’s careers page by adding pictures that show what working in the facility looks like. You can even post videos of current employees talking about their experience working for the facility.
5. Do not Forget the Skills Gap
There is a gap between what the industry considers the standard rates and what job seekers think.
The employers think that candidates are not as knowledgeable as they should be. They think that candidates are not aware of the technological and medical shifts. Whereas those looking for jobs cannot apply beyond entry-level jobs because of stringent job requirements.
You can address this issue by trying out the following tactics:
- Drive recruitment for fresh college graduates
- Increase candidates’ access to training on the job
- Increase minimum wage
You may also consider the average income of healthcare positions. Below are the average salaries of healthcare positions in the United States:
- Personal caregiver – 30,521 dollars
- Pharmacy technicians – 35,569 dollars
- Medical assistants – 34,201 dollars
- Dental assistants – 34,318 dollars
- Vocational nurses (licensed) – 49,273 dollars
- Practical nurse (licensed) 45,157
- Registered nurses – 65,130
- Healthcare administrators – 69,550
6. Consider External Aid
You can attract the best candidates to your facility by getting external aid. For example, your facility can hire a healthcare staffing agency that will do all the recruitment work. You can also invest in software that will aid your recruiting efforts and make the process easier and properly documented.
Conclusion
Staffing in the healthcare industry can be quite a challenge. A recruiter has to be on top of his game if they are to get an impressive workforce despite the challenging and competitive market. In this article, we have discussed some key tips that will help you not just attract the best medical professionals, but also ensure they stay.
The Editorial Team at Healthcare Business Today is made up of skilled healthcare writers and experts, led by our managing editor, Daniel Casciato, who has over 25 years of experience in healthcare writing. Since 1998, we have produced compelling and informative content for numerous publications, establishing ourselves as a trusted resource for health and wellness information. We offer readers access to fresh health, medicine, science, and technology developments and the latest in patient news, emphasizing how these developments affect our lives.
